Meeting Emma and Edde in Xi'an

Laura and the terracotta warriors
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Arrived in Xi'an on Saturday night at 9pm to rain and no one to pick us up.  A suspect hawker took us to the hostel, making us walk the whole kilometre in the rain (hee hee).  When we arrived, the manager Rex apologised for forgetting about us, and asked for our passports.  At that moment we realised we'd left them in the dining table drawer in the apartment in Yongzhou, a 24 hour train ride away.  While the panic was setting in as no one in Yongzhou was answering their phones to tell the hostel staff we weren't illegal immigrants, Emma and Edde walked out of the restaurant and into the lobby.  It was a joyous reunion and convinced the hostel owner, Jim Beam, that we were also Australian travellers and should be allowed to stay in his hostel.  After dumping our bags, we headed down to the bar for some beers and the 9th Island champers Emma had brought as a treat for us.  While watching the World Cup (England vs. Portugal) Jim Beam took on bets to live up to his name and scholled glass after glass of Jim Beam.  Unfortunately, he was sitting behind Laura and going for England.  Whenever Portugal did something good he kicked Laura in the head.  Weird.

James on Hua Shan
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On Sunday, we all took a seedy walk to the Muslim quarter to have a delicious Chinese-Muslim lunch which consisted of sweet potato jelly, flatbread, mutton and grain porridge, fragrant lamb kebabs and these other pink kebabs, still not sure what meat they were.  Headed through the markets, past the packs of cards with Iraq's most wanted on them, past the many fake watches and silk fans, to The Great Mosque, which was pretty great indeed.  We then walked through the South Gate and past the Drum and Bell Towers to the bus stop where we got on a bus to The Big Goose Pagoda.  It was big, it was a pagoda, but we didn't see any geese.  Out the front was the most amazing water fountain and music display any of us had ever seen.  Edde and James bought silly, colourful paper hats and as we walked around we had to be in Chinese tourists' photos.  Ended up getting on the right bus to get back to the hostel, but got on it as it was going the opposite way, so had to get a taxi to go double the distance.  Had dinner at a franchise called Roast Duck, where we had a massive plate of Roast Duck.  mmm mmm.

the foreigner is coming

Having dinner at Candy's aunty's restaurant.
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On Monday we headed an hour and a half out of Xi'an to see the famous Terracotta Warriors.  The warriors have had building built around and over them so they're not hurt by the weather.  Was great to see them, but seeing them from a balcony under a big roof kind of took away from the whole ancient wonder feeling we thought we'd experience.  Also the thousands of Chinese pushing and shoving and yelling didn't help either.  When we got back we immediately got on a bus which took us an hour out of Xi'an in another direction to Candy's (Chinese name is Shasha) aunty's restaurant.  We met Candy on the train coming from Yongzhou.  She asked what food we liked and Laura said "Any food as long as it doesn't have a head, feet or bones."  Edde asked Candy what food the restaurant specialized in and she answered "Bones.  Pork bones."  They were the tastiest pork bones ever, according to Emma, Edde and James.  She also ordered us raw vegetables with a chilli dipping sauce, satay chicken, sizzling beef and chilli tofu.  It was a great night and worth the hour getting there for the great food.

On top of Qin's mausoleum.
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Wednesday morning we got up at 7:30am to head out on the 2 hour bus ride to Hua Shan (Shan means mountain).  We missed the public bus which leaves the train station at 8am and had to get on the more expensive and less convenient mini bus which drove around the corner and sat at the kerb for an hour.  We played Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who would confront the hostess about leaving soon.  Emma lost with a rock and talked to the lady who said we'd leave soon but half an hour later we gave up and got off and had to fight and threaten to call the police to get our money back.  We decided to head to Qin's tomb instead and Candy and her cousin came with us.  We climbed the massive mound over the underground mausoleum in 37 degrees.  We decided to go to the Hot Springs for a swim afterwards, but found they didn't have pools, just private baths.  So we headed back to the hotel air conditioning and beer and then had the worst pizza ever for dinner.  The pizza restaurant had a sign in the toilet saying 'No poo poo, just pee pee'.  Then had fun in the local supermarket playing with all the Chinese toys and trying on hats.

Central Peak, Hua Shan
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Next day we got up even earlier and managed to catch the public bus to Hua Shan.  We caught the Austrian made cable car up the mountain (wouldn't have taken a Chinese made one up!) and hiked to the North, Central and East Peaks.  Emma and I nearly died on the hike as it was really hot and stairs going up all the way.  Then after all the exertion we took the thousands of stairs right back down the mountain (no more cable car for us hard core hikers!) and sweated buckets.  Edde actually had salt deposits left on his T-shirt from his perspiration!  Edde's T-shirt is Chinese writing which on the front says "the foreigner is coming' and on the back says 'the foreigner is going'.  It earns us a lot of laughs and we get to be in a lot of people's photos and get special treatment from hostel staff.  We went back utterly exhausted to the hostel.

The last day in Xi'an was spent running errands and bargaining for things in the markets. Laura's legs were so sore from the climb she couldn't climb up or down stairs without looking like an old woman, and we were staying on the 5th floor!  We spent the afternoon drinking Tsing Tao's and playing cards.  Left Xi'an on the train to go to Beijing.  We slept in hard sleepers (2nd class beds) which have 6 bunks in a cabin.  Edde and James slept on the very top bunks, there was a Chinese couple in the middle bunks and Emma and Laura slept on the bottom bunks (due to their sore legs not able to make it up the ladders).  Unfortunately, the fat chinese man snored, so Laura kept poking him to wake him up and then pretending to be asleep, for the greater good of everyone else getting some sleep, off course!